The Texas Christmas Gift (10 page)

With Derek’s help, she drew it out of the box. “Where do you want it?”

He looked around the living area of his two-bedroom suite. “On the bar, I think. Out of reach, but where she can see it.”

Eve set it there, then went back to her bags and reached for one containing tissue-wrapped presents. “This is for Tiffany. It’s meant for a baby’s first Christmas tree.”

Derek sat down on the sofa with his daughter snuggled beside him. He let Tiffany unwrap the tissue paper and pull out several cloth ornaments. The little girl chortled when she saw the Santa and Mrs. Claus. She giggled at the reindeer with its bright red nose, and smiled at the gingham candy canes and miniature teddy bears.

“Now she’s happy,” Derek murmured in a deep voice.

Eve draped the bottom of the little evergreen with a quilted skirt embroidered with the words
Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Finished, she turned back to him, a little embarrassed that she had let herself get so into this. “I know it’s not the same as being in your house right now,” she told him soberly, ordering herself to keep at least some emotional distance. She pulled two stockings out of the bag. One embroidered with Derek’s name, the other with Tiffany’s. Eve hung them side by side on the doorknobs of the tall armoire housing the television set. Again, both were safely out of reach of the toddler. “But hopefully, this will add a little touch of Christmas to your world in the meantime.”

“Thank you,” Derek said in a voice that was husky and soft, and so tender it brought forth an answering well of warmth in Eve.

Grinning, Tiffany scooted toward the edge of the sofa. Once she’d climbed down onto the floor, she toddled around, a stuffed ornament in each little hand. Jabbering nonstop, she placed the ornaments here and there and everywhere, beaming all the while.

Derek sat watching, relaxed and content. He exhaled again, then turned and locked eyes with Eve. “This was just what we needed. Thank you, Eve.”

Glad she’d acted on instinct instead of letting her usual reserve rule her, she smiled back. “You’re welcome.” Then, knowing it was time she left before she was tempted to do anything else “instinctive,” she looked around for her purse.

Once again, Derek was beside her, his hand on her arm. “Don’t go,” he said in a gently compelling voice. “Stay and have dinner here tonight.”

* * *

A
S IT TURNED
out, Tiffany had already eaten. She just needed her pajamas, bedtime bottle and story. And she wanted them from Eve, not Derek.

Everything in Eve that wanted to be a mother was eager to participate. But wary of jumping in even deeper into a situation that could easily leave her with a broken heart, she hesitated. “Should we? Because I’m not usually going to be here with the two of you.”

Derek sat down beside Eve with Tiffany on his lap.

The little girl grabbed a fistful of each of their clothes, trying to bring them closer together. Derek obliged by scooting over until the side of his body touched Eve’s. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring? All I know is she’s happy to have both of us with her, so I think we should just go with that.”

Because if they didn’t, Eve knew, Tiffany was likely to start crying again for a mommy. It had been hard enough earlier, seeing her so upset.

“You’re the expert.” Eve smiled down at Tiffany, who crawled off Derek’s lap and onto hers. Looking utterly content, the little girl leaned her head against Eve’s chest and propped her pajama-clad feet on Derek’s lap. Grinning and babbling, she held her bottle with one hand, looking happily from one adult to the other as she drank.

By the time she’d drained the bottle, her eyes were closing. And by the time Derek finished reading the story about the bear who accidentally slept through Christmas, she was sound asleep.

“Now for the really tricky part,” Derek whispered, easing the empty baby bottle out of his daughter’s hand. “Getting her into bed without waking her.”

Eve held her breath as he stood, leaned over and slipped his hands between Tiffany’s relaxed form and Eve’s chest. Oblivious to the immediate tingling in her body that resulted, he started to lift his daughter.

The pout on the little one’s face was back.

Derek waited, not moving, and Eve barely breathed, for another minute, then two.

Tiffany relaxed back into sleep.

Slowly, carefully, Derek lifted her, shifted her gently, then carried her into the adjacent bedroom where her crib was set up.

Aching with a similar need to be held and cared for, Eve stood and tried to calm her racing heart. Her taut nipples, her body’s awareness, meant nothing, she told herself. But when Derek came back to her, she could see that it did.

He was grateful. Gratitude in that man-who-has-just-been-rescued-by-an-intuitive-woman kind of way. Which was, Eve realized with no small amount of irony, not what she wanted from him at all.

* * *

“
S
O HOW ABOUT
that dinner?” Derek said, watching the conflicting mix of wistfulness and hesitation cross Eve’s face. He sensed she was as attracted to him as he was to her, yet determined not to act on the chemistry again, too. Feeling a little frustrated about it, as well as the fact that he hadn’t been able to comfort his child on his own, yet deeply grateful for Eve’s intervention, he walked toward her with a casual smile and handed her a leather-bound menu. “It seems I owe you whatever room service can provide.”

Eve glanced at her watch, noting that it was after eight. “Thanks,” she said politely, “but I really should go.”

“Sure?” Derek asked, oddly disappointed that she didn’t seem to think they should be enjoying these interactions as much as they actually were. He searched her face, looking for a way to persuade her. “It doesn’t have to be a date.”

A furrow formed along the bridge of her nose. “But you’d like it to be.”

He took a deep breath and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his slacks, aware it wasn’t like him to get attached to a woman so quickly, never mind one as gorgeous as Eve. And she
was
gorgeous tonight, with her hair down, her lips soft and bare, the light of awareness shimmering in her pretty amber eyes.

Derek shrugged and continued frankly, “I’m not going to pretend I don’t want to spend time with you.”
Man-and-woman time. The kind we’re not likely to forget.

She hitched in an uneven breath, even as she quirked her lips in a sassy smile. “At least we cleared that up,” she joked.

He let his gaze drift over her, noting the imprint of her nipples beneath her blouse. “You don’t want me to be honest?”

A turbulent light came into her eyes and she stepped away. “I don’t want you to move so fast.”

Derek edged closer anyway. He knew she was wary at heart. He also knew that wariness was keeping her from getting really close to anyone. “Why did you come over here tonight, then—if not to further our...whatever you’d like to call this?”

She angled her head to one side, as if studying him that way would give her greater insight into what was going on inside him. Silky hair fell across her shoulders, onto her breast. “I didn’t want you to be an unhappy former client,” she said softly.

Wishing he didn’t want to take her to bed quite so much, he drawled, “Bad for business?”

She smiled as the flirtatious mood between them intensified. “Very, as it happens.”

Derek cupped her shoulders between his palms. “You know what I think?”

Her tongue came out to briefly wet her lips. “I’m not sure I want to know,” she told him hoarsely, but, to his satisfaction, didn’t move away.

Feeling the pressure building at the front of his jeans, he noted with a wink, “I think the Christmas tree and the trimmings were just an excuse to be with me again.”

She blushed. “You’ve got no shortage of ego.”

“No shortage of desire,” Derek corrected, glad the interest wasn’t one-sided. He wrapped his arms around her and brought her closer still. Eve caught her breath but didn’t move away. Her nipples were taut, her knees trembling slightly.

Derek lowered his head, aware he wasn’t the only one who was so turned on he could barely breathe. “Kiss me,” he whispered, even more softly, “and tell me you don’t feel the same.”

Chapter Seven

Eve wanted to tell Derek she didn’t desire him. She wanted to tell him she didn’t want him to pull her against him. But the moment his lips found hers, all rational thought dissipated. Need entered the picture, and it was a yearning that refused to subside. When Derek finally lifted his head, the question she knew was coming glimmered in his beautiful blue eyes: Was this what she wanted? Because if not, they both knew they needed to stop.
Now.

Eve forced herself to be practical. And practicality told her she would not be able to stop thinking about him like this unless she answered some very fundamental questions. Such as, was making love to Derek going to be as heavenly as merely kissing him?

Aware that if he had any doubts, he sure wasn’t showing them, she hitched in a tremulous breath. “Normally I am not into one-night stands, but we need to get each other out of our systems.”

A corner of his mouth lifted in a sexy smile. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We need something, all right.”

And Eve knew exactly what that was.

She’d been wondering what gift to get herself. At first, way back in the beginning, she’d decided it would be not working with him. Now, she wanted something different. Still holding his devastating gaze, she flashed a smile. “It
is
Christmas....”

His eyes crinkled at the corners, the idea of making love to each other evidently as enthralling to him as it was to her. She lifted her face to his and teased, “What’s Christmas without at least one gift to ourselves?”

“Ah.” He nuzzled her neck, then danced her backward toward the bedroom he’d been using as an office. “A woman after my own heart.”

He let her go just long enough to gather all the folders and the computer, and stack them on the chair. Eve shrugged out of her red cashmere cardigan and toed off her black suede heels. “Just so you know, this one time is all it will be.”

He unbuttoned his shirt. “I hear you.”

Eve helped him remove it and then his T-shirt. His chest was sleek with satiny muscles, and a dusting of hair that arrowed down to his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his trousers. Damn, but he was beautiful. Inside and out. Forcing herself to concentrate only on the physical, she ran her hands over the warmth of his skin, appreciating the masculine strength. “But you don’t believe me.”

Derek let her explore to her heart’s content. “I think you mean it now.” He eased down the zipper at the back of her black-and-red sheath dress.

“What you’ll want after I do this...” The fine wool fabric fell over her hips and puddled on the floor at her feet. He bent to kiss the exposed arch of her throat, and then paused to admire the nipples protruding through the semi-sheer fabric of her red bra. “And this...” His lips dropped to her breast.

“And this...”

She trembled as her bra came off.

“...may be something else entirely.” His lips found the aching crowns, the valley between, the sensitive uppermost curves.

Eve closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feel of his tongue making lazy designs on her skin. She had never felt more beautiful than she did at that moment.

The next thing she knew, her black tights were being peeled off. Then her sheer red panties.

Moments later, Derek joined her, naked, between the sheets.

Eve had thought if she accepted her desire, and celebrated it freely, she would be able to control her reaction to him. She hadn’t banked on how it would feel having his bare form pressed up against hers. She hadn’t counted on the abundance of his masculinity or the skill with which he took her in his arms and made a leisurely tour of her entire body. Starting with her lips, then her throat and breasts, before moving lower still, across the quivery plane of her abdomen to the inside of her thighs. She arched as he found the most sensitive part of her, and caught his head in her hands.

And then all was lost in the glorious possession of his lips and caresses, and the tenderness he bestowed.

Satisfaction roared through Derek as Eve shuddered and fell apart in his hands. He waited until her trembling subsided, then moved up over her and slid between her thighs, his need to make her his stronger than ever. Clasping her against him, he kissed her hard and long, soft and deep, and every way in between. He kissed her until she moaned, her hands moving over him, finding him every bit as ready for more as she was. Their eyes locked again, and the sound of their ragged breathing filled the room.

“Now?” he whispered, touching her yet again.

“Now.” Eve arched, and he slid all the way home. She was as hot, silky and wet as he had imagined. Her lips found his and her body closed around him, demanding, pleading, urging him on. They moved in perfect union, again and again, until Derek was lost in the sweet essence that was Eve. And suddenly, for him, life was better than it had been in a long, long time.

* * *

“
S
TAY.”

With a sheet draped loosely around her, Eve bent to retrieve her clothes.

Her body might be sated, but her emotions were in tatters. “I can’t.”

Derek lay on his side, all six feet three inches of him sprawled out across the queen-size bed. Unlike her, he found no need to cover up, now that their first—and only—lovemaking session had ended.

Flushing, Eve turned her glance from the part of him that indicated he was as ready for more as she secretly was.

She steeled herself against the desire still roaring through her. “I’ve got two important meetings tomorrow.” Pretending an ease she couldn’t begin to feel, she slipped into the bathroom and put on her bra and panties. “The first is with a client from Houston, who collects interesting houses the way others amass fine art.”

Realizing she had yet to locate her tights, Eve came back into the bedroom. Feeling suddenly self-conscious in her red satin-and-lace undergarments, she circled the bed where Derek lay watching her, a mixture of delight and satisfaction in his gaze. “He’s interested in one designed by Santiago Florres.”